Wednesday, 1 December 2010

How Dave (finally) came out as a Thatcherite - and why it might not be so clever after all

Is David Cameron finally coming out as a true blue Thatcherite? The Spectator notes that the PM today embracing the idea that he is a "child of Thatcher" at Prime Minister's Questions, in order to attack Ed Miliband for having worked with Gordon Brown, certainly cheered the largely modern Thatcherite benches behind him up.

Many commentators say it is a misreading to regard Cameronism as an exercise in Thatcherite continuity. Maybe. But here is a "David Cameron is not a Thatcherite" challenge for those who think that.

Who can find three occasions where the Prime minister has directly said that he thinks that Thatcher or the Conservatives of the 1980s got a major political issue wrong?

And the "big society" is definitely not a correct answer to the question.

David Cameron wrote in the 2010 Tory party manifesto foreword:

... all of it brought together by my fundamental belief...that there is such a thing as society; it's just not the same thing as the state. So yes, this is a modern, progressive Conservative manifesto. It is confirmation that this party has changed."

Those who ask whether I am a Conservative need to know that the foundation stones of the alternative government that we're building are the ideas that should unite us all: the ideas that encouraged me as a young man to join the Conservative Party and work for Margaret Thatcher...

The reduction of Thatcherism into a sort of laissez-faire libertarianism does not do justice to her record. She was animated by a vision of the good society – a vision obscured by decades of economic dirigisme and cultural relativism. The task she set herself was to restore not only personal liberty in economic matters, but also a sense of duty, respect and moral obligation in social matters.

I, too, am animated by a vision of the good society. What I call social responsibility – responsibility to family and community, nation and planet – is as central to my politics as economic liberalism. Indeed, I believe the two are closely related.

What's going on? It may well be that David Cameron has always believed that he is broadly Thatcherite, but has never been sure whether to say so, or to whom.

David Cameron won PMQs. But the curious thing about the political lobby and the bloggertariat immediately treating David Cameron's one-liner as a terrific knock-out blow is that it confuses performance and strategy.

The sharp retort would appear to risk deepening the central problem of David Cameron's own political leadership. (Paul Waugh is impressed that it was unrehearsed and unscripted, yet that perhaps exemplifies the point as to why it could be considered revelatory about the PM's political instincts).

Tory pollster Andrew Cooper and most neutral academic election experts now suggest that probably the biggest single reason why David Cameron won only 36% of the vote in 2010 - just 4% more than Michael Howard in 2005, despite so many factors favouring the Opposition - was that his brand decontamination exercise faltered, and ultimately failed to convince most voters that the Tory party had changed. 75% of voters wanted a change from Labour; only 34% wanted a change to the Tories. It should have been 1997 in reverse - when Tony Blair put 9% on Labour's share, to 44%, while John Major was still only 5% short of Cameron - and it wasn't.

As Philip Cowley and Denis Kavanagh wrote in their 2010 election study:

Populus developed mood boards to study the Conservative and Labour images and reported each quarter. The most worrying finding for the Conservatives was the perception that they would, in a crunch, stick up for rich and privileged people. Cameron privately confessed late in 2008 that the persistence of this last image kept him awake at night. It was a factor in his shadow cabinet reshuffle in 2009. That the perception declined only slightly by the time the election was called reflected the limits of Cameron's brand decontamination strategy.

If that is perhaps the biggest reason why the Tories didn't win the election, is that perception strengthening or weakening in power?

Having failed to persuade voters in 2010 that the Conservative party had changed significantly, perhaps the central strategic question is whether the Cameron government is now putting substance on the change claim that was not there in the campaign, or whether the new Coalition increasingly looks like what people expect from the Tories in power anyway.

There are ways in which David Cameron has changed his party: primarily, in encouraging a diversity shift in terms of personnel, and in coming to terms with a more socially liberal Britain. Yet Cameron's decision never to challenge the Thatcher legacy symbolised the substantive limits of his party modernisation strategy.

Yet the closest observers of Conservative politics can provide strong evidence of the enduring strength of Thatcherite principles among the Tory class of 2010 in particular, as Tim Montgomerie of ConservativeHome has set out.

The candidates standing under blue colours at this election - and ConservativeHome has surveyed them more intensively than any other media organisation - cut their political teeth under Margaret Thatcher. They want welfare reform. Control of the trade unions. Lower, simpler taxes. Support for the family. Strong defence. She changed the politics of her party forever. Her children are coming to power. They won't fail this country and neither will David Cameron.

(2) Write pieces and make speeches to Conservative and right-wing audiences, which argue that you have been misunderstood when people say you are ditching Thatcherism, and point out that your ideas are precisely those which Margaret Thatcher held.

Centralisation: 'The only area of Margaret Thatcher's legacy I regret is the centralisation of government which was performed in those days.' (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1895692/David-Cameron-My-Margaret-Thatcher.html).

I am going to accept those: you win the prize! Free access to the blog or something (!)

I note he apologises for the crassness of experimenting on Scotland first on the poll tax, without making a substantive criticism of the poll tax.

Section 28: he had done well in this area.

The telling quote is the third one: "the only area"

Indeed, that piece also says

"

"The second lesson from Margaret Thatcher concerns the method of change. Never forget the slow, clever way in which she went about preparing for her struggle with Arthur Scargill - she declined battle until Britain had a sufficient stockpile of coal to withstand a long strike. In politics, conviction and canniness are excellent partners".

"I note he apologises for the crassness of experimenting on Scotland first on the poll tax, without making a substantive criticism of the poll tax."

My understanding is that Scotland wasn't used as an experiment. It was introduced there before England due to an upcoming rate revaluation that couldn't be postponed which would have made the rates much more expensive. The poll tax was therefore introduced early to avoid this. Fat lot of good that it did.

Yes, Red Ed had nothing to say in particular about anything - desperate to accuse the Tories of being stuck in the past, but unable to do so without bringing up Thatcher who quit 20 years ago (demonstrating a New New Labour variation on Godwin's Law in the process).

All he said was that being a child of Thatcher would be preferable to being the son of Brown.

It's not a terribly instructive statement.

It's a bit like saying being a child of Thatcher would be preferable to attempting to hammer one's own testicles flat.

Coming up with policies at a rate of less than one per year, it's difficult not to assume that, having been 'elected' by the unions' block and no-one else, Red Ed is to be expected to make good on some sort of promise to them.

I'll be very happy to stop calling him Red Ed when this state of affairs changes and also when people stop getting wound up by it - otherwise people are making it stick.